1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a conveyor system for conveying a green tire (crude rubber tire before vulcanization), supplied from the molding machine zone, to a specified tire vulcanizer in a tire vulcanizer factory.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a tire vulcanizer factory, numbers of tire vulcanizers are provided in a row, a stand for green tires is provided for each tire vulcanizer, and vulcanization is performed with the mold closed after a loader attached to each tire vulcanizer holds and conveys a green tire from a stand to a predetermined mold position for loading. Such tire vulcanizer group and the molding machine zone which produces green tires are installed adjacent to each other, but are not directly connected with each other. Thus, it is required to convey green tires from the molding machine zone to the stands of tire vulcanizers.
Such conventional green tire conveyor system includes the one using a hammock truck and a fork lift. A hammock truck is a truck on wheels with U-shaped hanging down hammocks provided, in each of which about 10 green tires are placed sideways. After manually loading green tires from the molding machine zone on a hammock truck and drawing them with a forklift to a tire vulcanizer, green tires have so far been manually transferred to the stand of the tire vulcanizer. Furthermore, because some amount of buffer needs to be prepared so as not to cause shortage of green tires in the event of troubles in the molding machine zone or switching to vulcanization of tires with different specifications, necessary amount has been reserved on the hammock trucks with green tires loaded thereon.
The above-mentioned conveyor system using the hammock trucks has had a problem in that the work requires manual operation and is not possible for everyone to operate because a green tire may happen to be more than 30 kg in weight. The group of tire vulcanizers did not mold a single specification of green tires but was often divided into two or more subgroups for molding green tires with different specifications. In such case, men had to read marks concerning the specifications on green tires, load the same specifications on green tires onto a hammock truck, and convey a specified hammock truck to a specified tire vulcanizer, and therefore the management became so complicated that there have been a fear of misoperations.
Thus, a system can be considered in which an automatic warehouse is installed between the group of tire vulcanizers and the molding machine zone and a connection is made with a conveyor between the molding zone and the automatic warehouse as well as between the automatic warehouse and each tire vulcanizer. However, since fixed facility such as automatic warehouses and conveyors is installed, there are a problem of being poor in flexibility, that is, significant modification in layout accompanying a change in the specification of green tires cannot be accomplished. Furthermore, such an automatic conveyor system is based upon the thought of conveying green tires one by one and so cannot be said to be an efficient conveyor system.
The present invention is made from a consideration of these problems in the prior art, and intended to provide a green tire conveyor system in tire vulcanizers that enables saving of energy due to automation, is so rich in flexibility as to easily follow a change in the specification of green tires, and is efficient with as the least possible waste.